By Jocelyn Huber
Cartoon by Andrew Hart, freelance artist and co-founder of the Philadelphia Cartoonist Society.
To see more of his artwork, visit his website here www.andrewjhart.com
All rights reserved to Andrew Hart
Whenever journalists, politicians and even average Americans debate budget cuts, a critique of salaries for teachers typically emerges. No matter the state, when money gets tight, some people begin to complain that teachers are being overcompensated. Addressing the budget showdown in Wisconsin, a Fox Business News anchor recently argued that it was unreasonable for a teacher in Wisconsin to have an average salary of $51,000 while the average worker salary in the United States is only $38,000.
The statistics cited by Fox are misleading, and one would expect that they know better. First, they got the average worker salary wrong. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics sets the average salary for all occupations at $43,460. Second, the average salary (2007) for those with a B.A. degree, the minimum required to be a teacher, is $56,118, which puts Wisconsin teachers below the national average. Moreover, those with advanced degrees in the U.S., which many but not all teachers hold, is upwards of $70,000.
Whenever I hear arguments like those made by Fox, I can’t help but wonder: So what do you think the people responsible for educating our children should be paid?